This. An emergency recall of parliament on a weekend for British Steel. Nothing at all for UK HE which employs far more people, has already shed 10,000 academic jobs, with several institutions on the brink of collapse.
A reminder: we train all the doctors, teachers, engineers, nurses, lawyers &c &c
A reminder: we train all the doctors, teachers, engineers, nurses, lawyers &c &c
Reposted from
Sarah May
British Steel employs 3.6k people. Coventry Uni group, which auditors say may not survive, employs 7.7k. But there is an emergency debate in parliament for British Steel and nothing for the whole HE sector imploding
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And education is [turns page] “simply nice to have”.
My dad grew up dirt poor on a dairy farm. My husband is the first from his family to go to university.
It’s all labour.
You need to start getting your hands dirty, impose wearing of high visibility jackets and hard hats at all lectures, then Keir Starmer will come for a photo opportunity with £2.5 billion in his back pocket
Works quite well on a placard.
They don’t care about academia.
It’s disgusting, it’s bigoted, and honestly it says that having an education means you aren’t a ‘real person’ in the ‘real world’.
It’s always academia that gets targeted first by authoritarian regimes, and people never defend it.
Places playing at "university" which used to be skills polytechnics and large FE colleges.
They became property developers more than places of learning and down they fall.
It doesn’t change the essential points which, is that academia/intelligentsia is always the first target (1/2)
No good can come of wilfully sacrificing the educated & culturally-engaged portion of the population to the backward & the wilfully ignorant. No country can survive without an intelligentsia.
HE doesn't want people from these backgrounds so people the feeling is mutual. No one wins its stupid all round.
We had grants; tuition fees paid by local authorities.
I grew up on council estates, went to state schools. Dad was 1st graduate in immediate family: went to Ruskin via his union, then to Salford.
Anti-learning mindset: intelligent kids were bullied by peers.
I was the first of my family to go to university. I hated it but did well.
I've never been ambitious and I've ambled through life looking at the daisies.
Not. A. Zero. Sum. Game.
And a huge number of academics have fought and died on the 20-21C front lines.
Simplism will be the death of y'all... 😬
There might even be an institution where this relationship can be researched and improved... 👩🏼🏫👨🏫😉
This is a thing in any country that's playing footsie with fascism: there's a social ideal of what a "real" citizen is, and everyone who doesn't fit that archetype…isn't.
It's also no coincidence that jobs that arent done by "real citizens" are also more likely done by women or people of colour.
White rural farmers? Real. While male Steelworkers? Real. Young woman nurse? Less real. Brown small biz owner? Not real.
It's also just giving people a sample of the kind of fascism that UKIP trades on…
What was the 3rd largest FE college in the country is now a 6th form college with about 800 16-18's, and the local Institute of Technology became a failing University.
But having read up a bit on it, it seems this steelworks situation is of fairly strategic industrial importance.